By: Joe Orlow

Joe Orlow — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 13:52:47 +0000

I think that part of the reason environmentalism doesn’t rate so high is that most, if not all people (including myself) are complicit in some way with not being environmental. I bought some organic apple juice today in a large glass jug. It came from California. How environmental is that? Organic: yes. Local: no. So to ask people to be concerned about the environment opens them up to charges of hypocrisy. I don’t think people want to be put in that position of saying to kids, “Do like I say, not as a do.” For example, if a teacher pushes composting, so the kid goes home and says to his parents: “I want to be environmental.” The parents beam. Then the kid says, “We have to start putting the leftovers in a box for the worms to eat.” What can the parents say? “Fine. When you’re 18 and move out you can do that.” Meanwhile, the parents call the school and the educator may end up getting a slip of paper and it won’t be green either.

By: Evonne Marzouk

Evonne Marzouk — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 22:54:50 +0000

Noam, thanks for this very helpful exploration of opportunities for Jewish environmental education (and for “Jewcologists”) I have also discovered a lot of environmental awareness outside of the young audiences that are normally pegged for our education. It makes me so frustrated that so many people do not consider the environment a high priority! Your suggestion, tying it to other issues, is important, but I also wonder if a piece of it is simple lack of (the right kind of) environmental education and whether that could help too.

Comments on: Generation of Change: How Leaders in their 20s and 30s are Reshaping American Jewish Life

By: Joe Orlow

By: Evonne Marzouk